Where is a decent whip made of chords when you need one?
Ok. I'm a bit cross. Rant incoming.
This weekend, I was in London with relatives, and we decided to go in to St Paul's Cathedral.
At the time, i was so pleased - I was feeling really rubbish, and the prospect of being able to go and sit in the house of God, find some space and pray and try and get my head together and spend a bit of time in private worship really, really appealed. I just wanted to go and be with my Father, in a quiet way that is quite hard in the bustle of central London.
As we went in, we went through a revolving door, which had emblazoned in bold letters,
"YOU ARE ENTERING THE HOUSE OF GOD; THE MEETING PLACE OF HEAVEN AND EARTH." I admit, i did have a little shiver of anticipation.
However, it seems that in order to enter the house of God, a fee of nine pounds per person is applicable.
NINE POUNDS!!!!! This is me being incenced and furious!!!!!
I understand that it is an historic building, with architectural significance that is important - and expensive - to maintain. But to put a stroppy woman (not in this instance me, I'd like to clarify!!) on the door and to refuse people entry if they won't pay seems WRONG WRONG WRONG.
I'm pleased to say I resisted the impulse to tell them Christ had already paid the price.
I know, I know. Cheese.
Anyhow, we DIDn't go in - it was way to expensive for us to justify, either in terms of what we could pay - and I really BAULK at having to pay nine pounds to go and spend time in prayer in a Church. What kind of message does that give people? There are barriers and everything!!
We left through the same revolving doors we had gone in by, as as we left to go out into God's creation, with the noise, the smell, the rubbish, the grandure, the beauty, the tourists, the door told us,
"YOU ARE ENTERING THE HOUSE OF GOD; THE MEETING PLACE OF HEAVEN AND EARTH."
This weekend, I was in London with relatives, and we decided to go in to St Paul's Cathedral.
At the time, i was so pleased - I was feeling really rubbish, and the prospect of being able to go and sit in the house of God, find some space and pray and try and get my head together and spend a bit of time in private worship really, really appealed. I just wanted to go and be with my Father, in a quiet way that is quite hard in the bustle of central London.
As we went in, we went through a revolving door, which had emblazoned in bold letters,
"YOU ARE ENTERING THE HOUSE OF GOD; THE MEETING PLACE OF HEAVEN AND EARTH." I admit, i did have a little shiver of anticipation.
However, it seems that in order to enter the house of God, a fee of nine pounds per person is applicable.
NINE POUNDS!!!!! This is me being incenced and furious!!!!!
I understand that it is an historic building, with architectural significance that is important - and expensive - to maintain. But to put a stroppy woman (not in this instance me, I'd like to clarify!!) on the door and to refuse people entry if they won't pay seems WRONG WRONG WRONG.
I'm pleased to say I resisted the impulse to tell them Christ had already paid the price.
I know, I know. Cheese.
Anyhow, we DIDn't go in - it was way to expensive for us to justify, either in terms of what we could pay - and I really BAULK at having to pay nine pounds to go and spend time in prayer in a Church. What kind of message does that give people? There are barriers and everything!!
We left through the same revolving doors we had gone in by, as as we left to go out into God's creation, with the noise, the smell, the rubbish, the grandure, the beauty, the tourists, the door told us,
"YOU ARE ENTERING THE HOUSE OF GOD; THE MEETING PLACE OF HEAVEN AND EARTH."
posted by Kathryn at 5:07 PM
2 Comments:
It is frustrating.
I understand that they charge in order to keep numbers of visitors DOWN (Yes DOWN) because they can't cope with as many people as would want to visit if it was free. apparently the same at Canterbury and other places too.
You can always enter for services for free. Clearly they don't have the problem of too many people wanting to come to those, eh?
Apologies if this comes over as harsh, but since I'm currently on the other side of the fence so-to-speak, trying to raise money to keep an ancient Church building standing, I've got a somewhat different point of view.
The fact is that you don't have to pay to go and pray in St Pauls - there is a chapel that is freely accessible for prayer at all times (my recollection is that there is a separate entrance for that) and you aren't of course charged for attending services. They also waive charges on other significant days during the year.
Whilst some Churches have tried voluntary donations, the problem with any sort of system that allows people to come into the main building if people say they are coming in to pray is it gets abused, so everybody gets charged for entry to most of the building. Unfortunately, it also takes someone on the desk - who I'm sure had spent the entire day dealing people coming in with cameras and guide books who are maintaining that they are only there to pray, in order to get in for free.
Unfortunately, in the UK, despite the C of E being the established Church, there is no financial support for the buildings - however large numbers of people seem to think that because it is the established Church there is some sort of support through their taxes. As a result, for churches big and small (and including ours that is currently trying to raise £0.5 million to stop the whole building falling down), people are quite happy to appreciate the beauty of a building, but more often than not unwilling to put forward the kind of levels of funding that are needed to keep it that way.
Rant over - St Pauls Cathedral has a paragraph explaining the policy and the reasons behind it on their website here.
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